Glow
by sarastar43
Summary: Glow in the dark bracelets, Castle/Beckett fluff.


_Title_: Glow  
_Author:_ sarastar43  
_Rating:_ I'm not entirely sure how the ratings work, so I figure T is safe. It's pretty tame though, a couple of mentions of murder and stuff, but no description or anything.  
_Spoilers:_ nothing in particular  
_Summary: _Glow-in-the-dark bracelets, Castle/Beckett fluff.  
_Disclaimer_: I don't own anything. Although I did preorder the season one DVDs!  
_Author's Note_: This is my first attempt at Castle fanfic, and only my second attempt at fanfic in general. It sounded good in my head, so hopefully it came out ok ^_^  
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The victim's sister was on her way back from a party when she saw the ex-boyfriend run out of her apartment, and found her sister bleeding on the floor. The party, Kate decided, explained the glow-in-the-dark bracelets the girl was wearing.

"I loved those things as a kid," she commented to Castle as they were leaving the apartment.

"The bracelets?"

She nodded. "There's just something so magical about them. People would be selling them at the Fourth of July celebrations, and I'd deck myself out in a whole bunch of them. My dad would grumble about the expense, saying it wasn't worth it for a hunk of plastic that would only glow for a few hours. But my mom – she would roll her eyes and laugh at him, and say that the fact that they faded so quickly made them all the more beautiful." She blinked, surprised at how much she had shared. It was funny how the smallest things could conjure up such strong memories.

Castle smiled at her. "Alexis had something of a love/hate relationship with the Fourth of July. She'd always get so excited by the chance to stay up late and go see the fireworks, right up until they actually started. She was terrified of the explosions, spent the whole thing hiding under the blanket with her hands over her ears."

He glanced over at Beckett, "She'd kill me if she knew I was telling you this, of course."

"I'll be sure and mention it, then," Beckett said, grinning. Castle shoved her.

-------

That turned out to be one of the few bright spots in a long and exhausting day. The case was open-and-shut, hardly 'Beckett flavored,' but she had been the one on duty when the call came in. It was pretty much a given that the ex-boyfriend had killed her, particularly when it became clear that he had hightailed it out of the city as soon as he was spotted by the sister. They finally tracked him down in southern New Jersey, when a state trooper pulled him over for speeding. Once they had him in custody it became clear that he had his fingers in a whole lot of very nasty pies, and the poor girl just got in over her head. No intellectual challenge to this case, just a sordid little murder: drugs, and sex, and the heartbreaking guilt of a sister who had been too wrapped up in her own life to see any of it happening.

By the time Kate Beckett got home that night, all she could think about was taking a nice cleansing bath and going straight to bed. Then she saw that the door of her apartment was slightly ajar. Heart hammering, exhaustion banished by adrenaline, she pulled her gun and cautious peered around the edge of the open door.

Then she slammed the door wide open and strode furiously into the room. Castle whirled around from where he had been crouched over her kitchen table. "Don't shoot!" he cried, hands in the air.

"Castle! I _should_ shoot you. You broke into my house!"

"Well, technically I didn't break in," he said, holding up her spare key, "and shouldn't a police detective know better than to hide a key under her door mat?"

She snatched the key out of his hand. "Out. Now."

Only when she had shoved him out and locked the door behind he did she remember he had been messing around at her table. She went to look, and saw dozens of glow-in-the-dark bracelets and a note. _Thought you could use a little magic today_. She started to smile, then reminded herself that she's furious.

But when she slept that night, it was under the soft glow of a bracelet hanging from the ceiling.


End file.
